CHAPTER 216: CHAPTER 215: GREAT TANG BANQUET

The banquet continued, with Lin Mengbo and others entertaining Xiao Jingfeng in the main hall; beyond the courtyard, Xiao Qingyu and a group of noble ladies were playing with their children; while in the back main house, Lin Wanwan and a group of ladies were seated.

Directly facing the main entrance was a food bed covered with a mat, in front of which stood a large rectangular dining table, flanked by two long benches with three married noblewomen seated on each.

In the lower left corner were two smaller dining tables, each with a long bench, where the unmarried young ladies sat.

Each person’s table held identical plates and bowls, with everything separate to avoid disturbance, which was a typical Great Tang communal dining style where people sat at the same table but dined separately.

For thousands of years before the Tang Dynasty, noble families practiced separate dining, with seating and meals differing according to status, allowing one to discern the social hierarchy of a banquet easily.

However, starting from the late Sui Dynasty, communal dining became popular as it was more lively, facilitating drinking games, singing, and dancing.

Today, there were nine unmarried and six married young ladies attending, each being the legitimate daughter of their family.

The sixteen ladies came from the Shi Family, Wang Family, the Zhang Family, Fang Family, and Fan Family. The married ones represented their husband’s family, while the unmarried ones naturally moved around with their own family.

These families originally had intricate connections with the Lin Family’s direct lineage, but communication broke off due to the Lin branch encountering bandit attacks during times of war, leaving them untraceable.

The Lin branch had little regard for these few major rural farmer families, barely giving them a thought. But now that Lin Wanwan had risen and received the title of Village Lady of Secondary Fifth Rank, their relations were naturally revived.

Poverty in a bustling area goes unnoticed, but wealth in hidden mountains brings distant relatives—such is the nature of society.

Lin Wanwan now possessed a powerful memory she suspected was a benefit of traveling through time, making it not difficult to memorize the complex familial relations behind this group.

Upon receiving visiting cards, Lin Wanwan rode out with Hua Nong and Kun Lun to seek out Xiao Chong.

As the County Magistrate of Mao County, Xiao Chong naturally possessed registration documents and materials for everyone, making it convenient to inquire directly with him.

He did not refuse her, and in the time it took to drink a cup of tea, he explained the relations between these families and the Lin family’s direct lineage.

Hence today, Lin Wanwan hosted everyone efficiently, matching names with faces swiftly.

Besides herself, Lin Wanwan also invited Lin Qinshi and the Clan Leader’s wife, Niu Shi, to accompany her. Though Xiao Xianghua was also a guest, she was closer than others with Lin Wanwan, akin to sisters, and helped her manage the crowd.

This sort of socializing was unfamiliar to Lin Wanwan in the past, but after today’s banquet, she felt ready to run a large event when she returned to modern times—it was excellent training.

After the fruit course, cold dishes were served. Among them, the most popular was the tuna sashimi, caught overseas by the people of Lin Family Manor.

Another dish prepared with modern techniques was the marinated red crab, which would become a famous dish in a thousand years in Yongcheng, though the people of Great Tang Mao County were not yet familiar with this approach.

Today, Lin Wanwan’s preparation was immediately well-received, as the sea crabs could be eaten this way, opening everyone’s eyes—perhaps the people of Mao County inherently loved seafood.

After the Lantern Festival, the men from Lin Family Manor sailed abroad, bringing back a wealth of seafood, and rushed to Qiantang to fetch Lin Wanwan after unloading.

She sold most of this batch of seafood to Jie Yuting, retaining a portion for today’s banquet, where everything was fresh throughout.

After the cold dishes came the hot dishes: shiny Beijing roast duck, spicy fried chicken bought as a half-finished product, crispy-on-the-outside tender-on-the-inside bean curd wrapped yellow croaker (also a half-finished product), tangy lemon sour soup beef, pine mushrooms stewed with native chicken, mutual respect shrimp cakes, red-braised potatoes and beef brisket, and more.

How much gold must all this cost! Had they not come today, none would have thought dishes could be cooked like this! The spices alone were worth a fortune, not to mention these unheard-of culinary methods.

And to think that the famous potato shone mockingly during the Spring Festival in Mao County, being incredibly delicious!

The legends of potatoes in Mao County had become one of the myths, alongside sweet potatoes as dual auspicious symbols, with the scene of Xiao Chong harvesting shocking everyone.

Now the people of Mao County began to claim Xiao Chong was an Immortal descended to the mortal world, bringing high yields of sweet potatoes and potatoes with him. Only the aristocratic circle of Mao County and the farmers around Lin Family Manor nearby knew of the role Lin Wanwan played behind Xiao Chong.

It was typical, given communication was poorly developed, and it was Xiao Chong who sold potatoes and sweet potatoes as seeds at a low price to the common folk, not Lin Wanwan.

The one who brings tangible benefits becomes a god.

Of course, these good things never reached the aristocrats. Typically, benefits in Mao County should be divided tenfold, with the County Magistrate and aristocrats sharing eight parts, and the remaining two parts for the common people to fight over.

But Xiao Chong acted against convention, selling sweet potatoes and potatoes cheaply to farmers, leaving aristocrats empty-handed.

Thus the aristocratic young ladies never had the chance to taste sweet potatoes, but today they found potatoes fresh.

Miss Zhang gazed at Lin Wanwan and said, "Miss Wanwan, were these delicacies cooked by the New Luo Maid?"

Seated at the host’s position on the food bed, Lin Wanwan looked at everyone’s shocked expressions and laughed lightly, "Not quite; these dishes were taught to me by my master when I was young. My master often said that food is the paramount concern to the people, demanding no coarse cooking, nor sloppy preparation. Love and food are the two things under heaven not to be missed.

"And such a saying indeed indicates a master who is a carefree and free-spirited recluse. Were all these culinary recipes created by your master?" asked Wang Shi, who was accompanied by two children, curiously.

"Correct, my master had his own obsession with food and cuisine, and my senior brother loved traveling the world, collecting rare treasures everywhere. The potatoes on your dining table were brought back from the overseas American Continent by him during one of his voyages westward," Lin Wanwan explained with a smile.

"Where is the American Continent located? That place seems to have such high-yield crops, perhaps it is a paradise.

Lin Wanwan replied without hesitation, "America, ah, just west of the sea, where resources are abundant, indeed a paradise. If a fleet could be assembled by a Great Tang Saint to explore, who knows what more wonderful things he might bring back for us.

My senior brother said that over there, gold and silver are everywhere, with open-pit gold mines filled with gold nobody picks up because of the vast land and scarce population. And there, people don’t even need to farm for a living; merely eating self-growing wild wheat and fruits lets them live in leisure."